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“Thanks, Liz.” He shoved the daisy into his pocket before turning to look at my brother and then Patrick. “Thanks for staying, lads.”
“We’ll always stay, Gibs,” Hugh replied, keeping one arm wrapped around Gerard, while using the other to tuck Lizzie close to his side.
“Exactly,” Patrick agreed, hooking his arm around Gerard from the other side. “What are friends for?”
A hot, angry feeling stabbed my belly.
It always happened when Liz and Hugh were together. She was supposed to be my friend, but she always played with my brother when she came over, and I didn’t like it.
Sitting cross-legged on the footpath in front of them, I picked at a scab on my elbow and tried to think nicer thoughts. Kinder thoughts. I’d made a promise to God, after all. I got to keep Gerard.
“Liz!” Caoimhe’s familiar voice drilled through the air. “What were you thinking running off like that? Mam’s looking all over the place for you.”
“Aw, crap,” Lizzie grumbled, quickly climbing to her feet. “I better go back.”
“I’ll walk you back to your sister,” Hugh said, springing up to join her. “I’ll be right back, Gibs.”
“He definitely has the hots for her,” Patrick announced, staring after Hugh and Liz as they walked up the path.
“Oh yeah,” Gerard agreed quietly. “He’s so obvious.”
Frowning, Patrick added, “I think she has the hots for him, too.”
“Yep,” Gerard replied. “She’s obvious, too.”
“What’s the hots?” I asked them.
“It’s when two people want to hold hands with each other and spend all of lunchtime playing together. Just the two of them,” Patrick explained.
“But Hugh doesn’t go to the same school as Liz, so how can they have the hots for each other if they don’t play together at lunchtime?”
“They do it at home instead,” Gerard offered.
“Playing?”
“Yep.”
“But you play with Lizzie, too, Patrick,” I added. “So, does that mean you have the hots for her, too?”
“I don’t know. Maybe sometimes,” he replied, looking distracted before quickly climbing to his feet. “I’ll be right back.”
“Sorry for running away earlier,” Gerard said when Patrick was gone. “I wasn’t running away from you.”
“It was the big hole in the ground, wasn’t it?” I asked, crawling over to sit beside him. “It scared me, too.”
With teary gray eyes, he nodded slowly. “I didn’t want to see them put my sister in the hole.”
“Hey, Gerard?”
“Yeah, Claire?”
“Do you need time?”
“Time for what?”
“I don’t know.” I shrugged and readjusted the knot holding my cardigan to my waist. “Caoimhe said that you lots of need time and that we’re to leave you alone.”
“No, no, don’t go,” he blurted out, snatching up my hand in his. “Okay?”
